Syrian Army Cuts off ISIS Supply Line as Jihadi Fighters are Trapped in Al-Bab

The Syrian Army made important gains against ISIS fighters in the eastern countryside of Aleppo city last weekend with terrorist forces taking massive losses in fighting in Aran. Aran had been one of the last terrorist strongholds that was preventing the Syrian Army from reaching Al-Bab. The Syrian Army and National Defense Force also gained a nearby hill in ‘Awaysha and set up a fire control over the ISIS supply rout into Al-Bab.

The ISIS forces, reported to be up to 5,000 fighters, seem to be in a ‘no-win situation’ and also have the added complexity of Turkish fighters moving in from the North as well as attacks from both Russian and Syrian Air Forces.

South Front brings a video report on the latest update below:

It remains unclear weather Syrians and Turks, backed by the Russians, will work together to fight ISIS in Al-Bab. The Duran explores this issue in the report below.

If true then this begs the major question of whether the Syrian troops who have been advancing on Al-Bab from the south are coordinating with the Turkish troops who together with Turkey’s Jihadi allies have been trying to take Al-Bab from the north.

One of the key reasons why ISIS has survived and grown in strength over the last few years is that conflicts between its ‘enemies’ have always prevented them from working together against it. Indeed some of ISIS’s ‘enemies’ (Turkey for instance) have in the past tried to use the organisation for their own purposes.

If the Syrians and the Turks – backed in this case by the Russians – can be brought to fight ISIS together in Al-Bab, then with 5,000 of its fighters apparently trapped in the town the organisation could be facing its biggest ever military defeat in the Syrian war.

Whether the Syrians and the Turks – for so long enemies in the Syrian war – will however fight ISIS together in Al-Bab, or whether we will instead see a ‘race for Al-Bab’ between the Syrians and the Turks, which could easily play into ISIS’s hands, remains to be seen. The fact that alongside the Turkish troops attacking Al-Bab are several thousand Turkish backed Jihadi fighters who are sworn enemies of the Syrian government can only complicate matters.

That ISIS’s fighters in Al-Bab have let themselves get trapped in the town is a further sign that as the organisation comes under increasing pressure it is abandoning the mobile tactics which have up to now served it so well. Reports from Deir Ezzor speak of another major ISIS attack which was repulsed with heavy losses. It seems that just as in Al-Bab ISIS is now intent on defending territory, so in Deir Ezzor it is now intent on capturing territory, in both cases regardless of cost.

The apparent change in tactics is not easy to explain but it may have psychological reasons or may be the result of the death in battle of the best and most experienced ISIS commanders, with their replacements lacking the flair and flexibility that previously served the organisation so well.

Whatever the reason, there are now reports of ISIS for the first time in the Syrian war suffering from shortages of fighters…